Europe Without Frontiers
GELB, NORMAN
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEMS Europe Without Frontiers By Norman Gelb London Three years from now—a short time in the history of nations —we will almost certainly witness the culmination of a...
...Still engaged in the dismantling of Britain's welfare state, she does not want to see it recreated through the instrument of a covey of European bureaucrats...
...If not Thatcher, who is well into her third term as Prime Minister, it is likely that her successor will see the benefits of full British involvement in the Community as outweighing the disadvantages...
...For the undeniable fact is that the European Community, with a population of more than 300,000 million, is about to become the largest and potentially the most prosperous market in the world...
...The drive toward an economically united Europe, with all trade barriers removed by 1992, continues unabated—to the growing alarm of the United States, Japan and other countries outside the 12member European Community...
...The international trade side of the European unity coin is another matter, raising the question of whether losses could equal or surpass any eventual savings in NATO expenditures...
...Spokesmen for the Common Market contend that this anxiety is misplaced...
...But poorer members—including Greece, Spain and Portugal— see their participation in the Community and its imminent transformation as finally guaranteeing them an opportunity to lift the standards of living of their peoples through industrial advancement stimulated by at least a partial cutoff of imports from nonmembers...
...Dreading the second course, she has issued a stream of warnings that Britain will block any attempts to create apolitically integrated United States of Europe...
...The irony is that the Common Market received unqualified American backing during its formative stages...
...The European Commission in Brussels has already urged member nations to "stabilize" imports of Japanese cars, a hint of more specific action to come...
...Since Japan provides a far smaller market for European exports than the United States and has little room to retaliate, it is especially worried...
...All the members of the Community, including Britain, already consult and often operate in concert on a whole range of issues— from pollution control to foreign policy— and their actions are coordinated by Brussels...
...They feel she is delaying the day when Europe will become a truly common market—set for a major economic boom stretching from the Atlantic to the Soviet bloc countries and perhaps, with mutually beneficial overspill, to the USSR as well...
...She insists that removing trade barriers will do the intended economic job, without violating the sovereignty or diluting the distinctive characteristics of the member nations...
...Skirmishes between Washington and Brussels over European protectionism potentially damaging to American exports have also taken place, spiced with threats and counterthreats...
...or it can become a centralized "Socialist" entity ruled by bureaucrats in Brussels who will intrude upon every aspect of national life, not merely economic structure and performance...
...would retaliate "within ten minutes...
...Officials in Washington and Tokyo responsible for monitoring the Community have been examining steps that might be taken to pressure it into abiding by its free market assurances, should this appear necessary...
...Common Market countries with healthy industrial bases and solid foreign markets for their goods—notably Britain, West Germany and Holland—insist that even when the frontiers come down within Europe free trade will be the objective and the rule...
...Thatcher believes the new Europe can go one of two ways: It can retain and improve a free enterprise economic culture...
...Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are reluctant to admit as much, but with Europe showing signs of greater unity than at any time since the early days of the Holy Roman Empire, the day may soon be approaching for a serious winding down of the American military presence...
...Various European figures have similarly stressed at recent international gatherings that Western Europe, in its new guise, will be "open to the world.' In some Common Market circles, however, it is being concedediorio voce that there may be a need for "temporary" protection against external economic competitors so that internal European industries can develop stronger foundations—for instance, in struggling high technology sectors where the Japanese in particular, and the Americans, have been doing so well...
...Moreover, the only leader taking a position that might soften the blow, albeit for her own reasons, is British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher...
...But strong as the links between Britain and America remain, many here recognize the advantages of wholehearted British participation in the European Community...
...She has refused to permit Britain to join the European Monetary System, for example, and rejects proposals for a European central bank...
...It sometimes seems that Thatcher even regrets Britain's agreeing to tie itself to the Continent through the construction of a tunnel underneath the English Channel...
...Although she is enthusiastic about the impending elimination of virtually all trade barriers within the European Community, she has objected vehemently to the notion of political unification, which would accelerate economic cohesion...
...Thatcher was furious when Jacques Delors, president of the European Commission, suggested last October while addressing the British Labor Party Conference that practically all European social policy would shortly be formulated by the Community, rather than its constituent national governments...
...A senior United States official has been quoted as saying that in the event of European measures discriminating against American goods, the U.S...
...Indeed, despite the fact that all European statesmen firmly deny the Community is about to be transformed into Fortress Europe, determined to repel the merest hint of a challenge from the outside, there is a significant division of opinion on this score...
...THE PRACTICAL PROBLEMS Europe Without Frontiers By Norman Gelb London Three years from now—a short time in the history of nations —we will almost certainly witness the culmination of a process destined to change the face of the globe...
...It seemed to offer the prospect of a Europe strong enough to allow a reduction in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense burden...
...She therefore meticulously spurns Community projects that might have direct political overtones...
...Never a favorite of other European leaders, Thatcher has lately aroused the ire of such figures as West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita and Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens...
...By 1993, it is likely that a direct train link between London and Paris will be in place...
...In addition, any suggestion that Europe abandon its absurd Common Agricultural Policy—which costs a fortune to maintain, artificially hikes prices, and undermines free trade in agricultural products—is rejected as unthinkable by national leaders who shudder at the thought of having to confront their long mollycoddled farmers with the chilly facts of life...
...Following the apparent success of an experiment with a joint West German-French army brigade, moves are afoot to create a joint British-Dutch-Belgian-West German élite airborne division...
...And that could be coming to pass...
...Forecasts are for near-term economic growth levels of 5 per cent once European frontiers actually dissolve, with consumer prices dropping by some 6 per cent as the consequences filter through, and employment levels rising sharply...
...A Europe without frontiers will immediately become dynamic and expansive, they say, and will serve to stimulate international commerce rather than restrict it...
...Thatcher's critics also wonder whether what they view as British obstructionism is simply a matter of the Iron Lady always wanting to have her way, or whether Charles de Gaulle was right when he complained that the British are too emotionally, spiritually and traditionally linked to the United States ever to be a full member of Europe...
...Work is proceeding more or less on schedule though...
...To the extent that the American taxpayer would be spared expanding NATO costs, the United States is not at all peeved about such initiatives...
...The Europeans are accelerating the effort to beef up non-American aspects of their defenses...
...Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...
Vol. 72 • January 1989 • No. 1
